


screaming on the inside.

by LLReid



Category: Bloodbound (Visual Novels), Queen B (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Canon LGBTQ Character, Cheating, F/F, Heavy Angst, I AM SO SORRY WHAT HAVE I DONE, Infidelity, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Female Character, LGBTQ Themes, Post-Break Up, REQUEST!!, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:00:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28803936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: Each chapter is inspired by two different songs.~~~~“I made my bed and now I must lie in it— does she ever ask about me?”“Of course she asks about you.” Adrian sighed. “The sort of love you two have— that you two had... it doesn’t just go away.”She scoffed before she could stop herself. “Doesn’t it? She seems perfectly happy.”“She is happy,” he confirmed. “There’s no denying that she adores Ina and that she makes her happy... but she isn’t you.”“She isn’t me,” she sighed, nodding in agreement, “but I am the only one to blame for this whole thing. I have no right to sit here brooding— I mean, at the end of the day, what the hell does it matter who she ends up with if it can't be me?”Adrian took a sip out of his glass of wine and nodded his head slowly. “I still don’t understand why you did it— you looked at Anastasia like she was your moon and stars, and you still do. What the hell possessed you that night?”“I wish I knew,” she whispered. “I have no explanations or excuses that I can offer you. It just... happened... and I will wish for as long as I draw breath that it hadn’t.”
Relationships: Aiko Nakamura/Kamilah Sayeed, Ina Kingsley/Anastasia Swann, Ina Kingsley/Main Character, Kamilah Sayeed/Anastasia Swann, Kamilah Sayeed/Main Character (Bloodbound)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 59





	1. i’ll only hurt you if you let me.

**Author's Note:**

> PROMPT: Privet, ne mogli by vy napisat' fanfik. Gde Kamila izmenyayet Anastasii s Ayko, pozhaluysta?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by: When The Party’s Over by Lewis Capaldi & Someone You Loved by The Piano Guys.

“Annie,” Kamilah whimpered as tears stung at her eyes. “Please talk to me—“

“It’s Anastasia to you,” the younger vampire fired back. “Don’t you dare call me that. You have no right— not any more.”

Her words were like a dagger twisting straight to the depths of her withered old heart, the venom and the sadness behind them knotting in the ancient vampire’s stomach. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to happen after she’d gotten herself drunk enough to be seduced into bed by Aiko Nakamura... but that one sentence was worse than anything she could’ve imagined.

This was Annie. HER Annie.

Without thinking Kamilah reached out to try and take her girlfriend’s hand, only to have Anastasia yank her hand out of her reach. The Bloodkeeper wouldn’t even look at her.

“Don’t touch me,” Anastasia snapped. “Just— I swear to god, don’t try to fucking touch me.”

Kamilah’s bottom lip trembled violently as the guilt and self loathing silently gnawed away at her heart. 

“I was drunk—“

“And you think that’s an excuse?,” Anastasia snapped. “You had a few too many and somehow your face just happened to wind up between her legs, is that it? It’s the alcohol’s fault, right? You had no part in this—“

“No, I—“ She cleared her throat. “No.”

Anastasia laughed humourlessly and shook her head.

Kamilah knew her girlfriend very, very well. And when she clammed up like this? She was not just working one thought over in her brain. No, she was constructing a complicated web of scenarios and what ifs, each thread layering over another, thickening and twisting until suddenly she was mad about something that never even occurred to her— normally it would’ve irritated her, but given the circumstances, she supposed Anastasia had every right to be mad at the whole world.

“Please just— I— Tell me how to fix this,” she pleaded across the breakfast table. “I was drunk enough that I didn’t know what I was doing and— she—“

“What exactly do you want me to say to you, Kamilah?,” Anastasia sighed. “What do you expect me to say to make this better?”

She wiped roughly at her eyes. “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. I love you so much—“

“You might love me — whatever the hell that word even means to you — but you have no respect for me whatsoever.”

“Don’t say that,” she snapped. “I told you what happened the moment I got home because I have too much respect for you to lie. I knew it when I made the worst decision of my life. I knew not only that I would likely risk losing you forever, but also that I would be hated and despised forever by the one person I love more than life itself. I made the choice. I have to live with the consequences—“

“That’s bullshit,” Anastasia snarled. “You only told me because you were scared I’d find out on my own. You wanted to control your own narrative and get to me before Aiko could, or before I saw either of your memories.”

“I’m sorry,” Kamilah whimpered. “My love—“

“Don’t you dare call me that,” Anastasia interjected. “I’m not your love. I’m not your Annie. You and I are done.”

“Annie,” she sobbed, grabbing her hand. “Please— You know that I would never hurt you—“

“Then how come you did?,” Anastasia whispered as tears began pouring down her cheeks. “You’re not the first to do this to me... but you were the one person who I thought would never, ever hurt me.” She yanked her hand away from her and stood up from the table. “The one person I was stupid enough to believe I was actually enough for.”

“You are enough,” she cried. “You’re more than enough—“

“Just stop,” Anastasia laughed weakly. “Whatever it is you’re trying to do... just stop.”

“You’re the love of my life and I know that I’ve hurt you.” She took a step towards her and Anastasia simultaneously took a step away. “But this can’t be it— We can fix this— I can fix this if you just give me a chance—“

Anastasia walked towards the kitchen door and froze in the doorframe, well out of her reach. “You can’t fix this, Kamilah.“

“I can,” she sobbed. “Please just give me a chance to show you how sorry I am—“

“Why? So you can get drunk and fuck another one of your exes a century from now and expect me to be fine with it because I was weak enough to tolerate this treatment the first time?,” snapped Anastasia. “Go to hell.”

“Don’t leave me,” she pleaded. “I can’t lose you again.”

Anastasia sighed and wiped at her eyes before meeting her gaze. “You already have.”

“I love you,” she whimpered. “Annie, I love you. I love only you and you know that. If you love me, you’ll stay and we’ll work through this—“

“I do love you but I fucking hate you for doing this to me,” Anastasia whispered. “I know that you think you love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. It doesn’t matter what you do or what you say, I’ll never be able to look at you and feel the way I did yesterday.” She laughed weakly as more tears trickled down her cheeks. “And the worst part is that I knew this was going to happen, because it always happens. So I’m not blaming you for fucking Aiko... she’s a beautiful woman and I understand why you’d pick her. I’m not angry at you, either. I probably should be, but I’m not. I’m hurt— I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much it would hurt when you eventually betrayed me, but I was wrong.”

A choked sob left Kamilah’s throat before she could restrain it. How could she have hurt the love of her life like this? Why was hurting people the only thing she was good for?

“Please...,” she whimpered, her breath arresting.

She did not want to know that Anastasia didn’t want her any more. 

She did not want to know what she would do without her. 

She did not want to know what she would be without her. 

She did not want know. She did not want to know a thing.

Anastasia swallowed thickly and let out a shuddered sigh as she fished her key to the penthouse out of her jacket pocket and sat it on the counter closest to the door. “Bye, Kamilah.”

All she could do was watch in horror as Anastasia turned and left without another word or look over her shoulder. Time seemed to slow down as she watched her walk away. Leaving her. Leaving the life they’d only just begun planning.

She fell to her knees as the door closed behind her and the suffocating silence she was well used to fell over the penthouse once again. Such silence now had an actual sound that it didn’t have before, the sound of disappearance, the sound of her heart breaking.

A loud sob racked through her body as she slammed her fist against her thigh, hitting herself hard enough to leave a bruise. She deserved it, she rationalised. She’d singlehandedly extinguished the light of her life, setting everything she’d began hoping for and dreaming for ablaze.

How could she have been so foolish? So reckless?

So... heartless?

This wasn’t who she was now... yet she’d somehow fallen back into her old habits so easily. How could she have allowed this to happen?

The look on Anastasia’s face as she’d broken the news to her flashed through her mind and all she saw was those twinkly blue eyes dimming, staring right through her like she wasn’t even there. God... she’d really, really hurt her.

Sob after sob tore through her body as she huddled on the floor, hugging herself to try to stop the agony. She couldn’t really have driven Anastasia away, could she have? She’d be back, wouldn’t she?

She had waited for her. Her whole life, she’d been simply waiting for this wonderful woman to find her. Standing resolute in the moonlight for more than two thousand years, she had stood alone with a purpose she hadn’t known. Yet she had been waiting just for her the whole time. An uncountable number of shadows had passed across the moon, endless cool breezes had ruffled the leaves around her. Yet still, she had been waiting just for her.

Now she’d lost her.

She’d really lost her.

And there was no one to blame but herself.

She cried herself out on the kitchen floor. Cried until she had to tears left.

Anyway she tried to slice reality and figure out exactly how she’d wound up in Aiko’s arms it came out poorly, and she felt an urge to not exist, something she had never felt to this extreme before; and now here it came with conviction, almost panic. She mentally blessed and exonerated anyone who had ever kicked a chair out from beneath them or swallowed opium in large chunks. Her ancient mind had now met their environment, here in the void. She understood perfectly how a person could loathe themselves so much that death seemed the only reasonable escape.

Perhaps this was what the stories meant when they called somebody heartsick. Her heart and her stomach and her whole insides felt empty and hollow and aching... and she just wanted it to stop.

She knew her heart would never be the same again.

But she began telling herself that she would be okay. She had to be. But it didn’t help.

She could feel her insides sink, again and again. Her knees too, her everything. So she sat on the ground, against the cabinets, letting them support her as she stared into the empty void. 

She thought she knew what heartbreak felt like. She thought heartbreak was her, standing alone at the bar. That was nothing. This, this was real and true heartbreak like she’d never known it before. The pain in her chest, the ache behind her eyes and in her head. The knowing that things would never be the same again. It was all relative, she supposed. Just like she thought that she knew love before finding Anastasia, she had been foolish enough to believe that she had known real pain, but she hadn’t. She hadn’t known anything before this.

She’d allowed herself to feel love for another person in a way she’d once sworn to herself that she never would. She’d become completely vulnerable, and now she’d been torn apart with hurt and catapulted onto a path she might never have taken otherwise. 

She’d risked her whole life for somebody else. She’d messed it up for momentary satisfaction in her alcohol induced delirium. Worse, there was no one to blame but herself.

“Goodbye," she whispered at last, when it no longer mattered and there was no one to hear it but the window.

~~~~ five years later ~~~~

“So... her relationship with Ina Kingsley must be serious if she’s Turned her,” Kamilah said quietly to Adrian as she stared into the glass of scotch she was drinking. 

Adrian cleared his throat and rested his hand on her arm. “Ina proposed to her last week.”

Her heart clenched. “Oh?”

“Anastasia said yes.”

At that Kamilah looked up and glanced across the ballroom towards her ex and Ina Kingsley, who were standing side by side doing press interviews to advertise Lily’s latest vampire social media venture: Fangstagram. Ina’s arm was around The Bloodkeeper’s shoulders and Anastasia had one arm draped around the professor’s waist.

Kamilah could only sigh at the sight of them entwined like this... like the break they’d taken in which Anastasia had met and loved her had never even happened. Like she no longer thought of her at all. 

Anastasia was now nothing more to her but the girl she once knew better than anyone else. Even now she took her breath away, she was so pretty. Took her heart. Her soul. 

She was a stranger to her now, and she was a stranger to herself.

She couldn’t help but feel angry at herself at the sight of them but not suicidal; this may have been unlooked-for progress, she rationalised as she watched the happy couple. Anastasia had looked at her that way once... back when she’d been her Annie and no longer Ina Kingsley’s Nastyona, or whatever the hell it was she called her.

Her mind floated like ash as Ina kissed Anastasia’s forehead, and she blamed herself most cruelly. The truth that Anastasia had moved on and was now living the sort of life that Kamilah should’ve been the one to give her hit her like a tonne of bricks. Even now, five years after she’d made the worse choice of her life and followed Aiko to bed, part of her had still hoped that Anastasia would come back to her. Part of her had rationalised that if she could go back to Ina Kingsley after taking a few-years-long break, then there was every chance she’d come home... but the thing was, Ina Kingsley had never hurt her the way she had.

Ina Kingsley had never betrayed her.

The only people that couldn’t handle the truth were those that suffered so much anxiety that they would rather live in denial, in order to prevent their illusion from being destroyed and causing them to feel more anxiety. But staring across Fangstagram’s launch event at the happy young couple, it was clear to everybody that Anastasia wasn’t coming back.

“Are you alright?,” Adrian whispered.

She nodded. “I made my bed and now I must lie in it— does she ever ask about me?”

“Of course she asks about you.” Adrian sighed. “The sort of love you two have— that you two had... it doesn’t just go away.”

She scoffed before she could stop herself. “Doesn’t it? She seems perfectly happy.”

“She is happy,” he confirmed. “There’s no denying that she adores Ina and that she makes her happy... but she isn’t you.”

“She isn’t me,” she sighed, nodding in agreement, “but I am the only one to blame for this whole thing. I have no right to sit here brooding— I mean, at the end of the day, what the hell does it matter who she ends up with if it can't be me?”

Adrian took a sip out of his glass of wine and nodded his head slowly. “I still don’t understand why you did it— you looked at Anastasia like she was your moon and stars, and you still do. What the hell possessed you that night?”

“I wish I knew,” she whispered. “I have no explanations or excuses that I can offer you. It’s just... happened... and I will wish for as long as I draw breath that it hadn’t.”

Adrian had been the first person to berate her once he’d found out what had happened between her and Anastasia. He’d been so mad at her that he hadn’t spoken to her for close to two weeks afterwards... and Lily Spencer could still hardly look at her all these years later.

He sighed. “I really thought she was the one for you.”

“She was the one for me,” she mumbled. “She is the one for me. The only.”

He drained the rest of his glass and heaved an exhausted sigh. “God, Kamilah. I— I don’t mean to harp on but, how the hell did this happen? How could you do that to her, really?" 

“Because I am a complete scoundrel,” she snapped in agreement, but it was a cop-out. “I was stressed at work, and she was unhappy and struggling with her trauma, and we were always bickering... and you know I was just crazy—“

He cut her off, saying, "You don’t get to be crazy. You did exactly what you chose to do."

Which was true, she did. It was what she had always done. She fell silent as she considered the notion and suddenly seemed slightly puzzled at the need for further diagnosis, which explained her third response, “I don’t know."

This, she felt instinctively, was the only correct answer. How could anybody stay angry with her for being exactly what she was? No coincidences, that’s what Freud said. None. Ever.

Adrian wiped roughly at his eyes and said, "Fine. At least now I know: You don’t know."

Her heart clenched in her chest again. She knew that Adrian loved Anastasia ardently and he would’ve spent every moment of his life worshiping at her feet, had she chosen to take a chance on him rather than her. And though he adored her as a sister, he resented her for the way she had broken the woman that they loved... possibly even loathed her for it.

She stopped with her glass halfway to her mouth and looked at him to be met with one more question: a bullet demanding attention in the moment it entered the skin and spread outward, an important bullet that had needed to be acknowledged for years.

"What did you feel?,” he prodded. “When you woke up beside Aiko and realised what you’d done? What did you feel?”

After a lengthy pause, she answered. "I felt nothing."

And that, she realised too late, was not the whole truth, but was a valid part of the truth... and it was all she could bring herself to say without crying. 

“Do you think you still love her?,” Adrian asked quietly. “Really, really love her.”

"I never stopped." She closed her eyes, but the tears overflowed nevertheless. "She opened a door into a whole new world I never even knew existed. I've stepped through that door, and I cant return.”

Adrian drew her in and she rested her head against his shoulder. He said nothing, and for that, she was thankful.

Finding Anastasia had been like being blind from birth and then one day suddenly being able to see. And not just see, but to witness the sun rising in all her glory across the azure sky. The dusky lavenders and blues lightening to pinks and reds, spreading across the furthest reaches of the horizon until the entire earth was lit. Until one then had to blink and fall to ones knees in awe at the light.

Even now, she had been made blind again in the next instant, she would ever after remember and know what was missed. What could have been.

Across the room, Anastasia and Ina were laughing together. If she focused on their voices she could hear little snippets of the conversation over the music... it was something to do with the handbag industry evolving from the useless pockets on women’s clothing, and they both found it hilarious for some reason unbeknownst to her.

Anastasia was sparkling, the way she always did. Her laugh like music. Her charms undeniably enrapturing to everybody who laid eyes on her. She seemed... well. Like she was thriving. Like she’d put herself back together again and was stronger than she’d ever been before.

She rubbed at her eyes before her tears could escape and turned back to stare down at the empty glass now held between her hands. From the outside looking in, one would’ve said that she was also doing very well... but the truth was: she’d never felt more weak. She’d never loathed herself more.

She may have tried to put the pieces of her shattered life back together again, and even though she may have looked perfectly intact and untouchable, she would never quite be the same as she’d been before her night with Aiko.

So it was true, she realised. That when all was said and done, grief really was the price we paid for love.


	2. i never meant to hurt you, it’s just something i do.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by; Always Hate Me by James Blunt & Lose You To Love Me by The Piano Guys.

Kamilah’s hands shook violently as she stared down at her phone — at the beautiful pictures taken at her Annie’s wedding to Ina Kingsley — and her stomach started to churn. Mrs. Kingsley, the caption said. Anastasia Kingsley.

It should’ve been her. 

Anastasia Sayeed should’ve been her new name.

Tears began pouring down her face as she fired her brand new iPhone at the half-empty mini bar that stood in the penthouse’s main living room, shattering a series of expensive bottles of vodka and whiskey along with the device. This nightmare was one of her own making. She had no right to feel the way she did after betraying the love of her life in an alcohol induced moment of weakness. She had no right to still be pining for her after all this time.

Yet here she was.

Drunk.

Broken.

Empty.

Alone.

She needed Anastasia. More than she needed blood to survive or the pleasure that her beloved had once offered her so freely with her playground of a body, she needed her — and that was far more terrifying than anything else she’d ever seen or did in her life as a blood sucking monster. 

God, it was so painful, loving her this much from afar. Not being able to love her freely or hold her or kiss her. Being pushed away. Watching her seemingly move on to live her best life — from the outside — without her. The once extremely familiar elements of her life reduced to nothing more than occasional mentions in conversations by their mutual friends who always spoke too carefully about her and the faces and scenes changing in her Instagram photographs or the magazine covers with her face on them. 

She learned more about her these days from articles in Vogue than anywhere else. That was what it had come to. She was really buying whatever magazine she was interviewed in or reading poorly written DailyMail articles containing twenty paparazzi photos of her getting her morning coffee to see what she was up to.

Her Annie existed to her now as nothing more than living proof that someone could still break her heart… with absolutely no contact between them at all. Proof that silence could sometimes be the loudest thing in the world.

She paced back and forth across the length of her living room, the only sound her bare feet hitting the polished wood with each and every staggered step she took. Five years and endless frantic laps around the living room later, she was still no closer to figuring out exactly why she’d gotten into bed with Aiko than she had been the night her Annie had left. Now Anastasia was married and still refusing to talk to her. Her text messages went ignored. Her calls were never returned. Were it not for Adrian confirming that The Bloodkeeper was, in fact, still asking about her she would’ve assumed Anastasia just didn’t care anymore.

She would’ve assumed that she hated her.

Yet the fact she was asking about her meant she wasn’t 100% happy in her new life— she knew her well enough to know that polite conversation without a grander purpose wasn’t something she generally enjoyed being engaged in. She was vibrantly friendly and a highly chatty individual but she simply wouldn’t ask about her unless she genuinely cared... that was something she knew for certain.

Their break up had been like a stalemate. Neither of them had won a damn thing. Both of them had somehow lost everything. And worse still… that unshakable feeling that nothing was ever really finished never seemed to leave her... and she wasn’t sure that it ever would.

Heaving a sigh, she flopped down on the sofa and thought back to the morning she’d woken up in Aiko’s hotel room:

_The feeling of a warm body shifting in her arms made Kamilah start to stir. A relentless pounding in her head was the first thing she noted as she groggily rubbed her cheek against the pillow, keeping her eyes shut tight to postpone the burning she knew she was in for when she finally summoned the will to open them. The last thing she recalled was ordering a drink at an upscale bar on The Upper East Side and texting her girlfriend — who was too busy at work to join her — a simple but very affectionate goodnight._

_It hadn’t been like her to go out drinking alone. Yet she’d required some sort of distraction after spending the entire day trying to figure out exactly how she planned to ask Anastasia to move in with her. They were ready for that step and she loathed every moment they weren’t together... but she’d never asked anybody to move in with her before and she was nervous — what if she said no?!_

_“Good morning, my angel,” she murmured without opening her eyes._

_“What did you just call me?”_

_Every muscle in her body stiffened at once at the sound of the sickeningly familiar voice and she shot out of the bed so quickly that she tore the thin white sheet that had been draped over her body. Aiko Nakamura was staring back at her and she was— she was in an equal state of undress as she was._

_“What the— Did we—“_

_“We did,” Aiko yawned as she sat up in bed and gazed up at her with a doe-eyed expression. “I— don’t you remember?”_

_Aiko’s eyes locked on hers wide and wild, and Kamilah’s nostrils flared. Shock — pure shock flashed across her features as the gravity of what had somehow happened the night before hit her, and she stumbled back a step. Actually stumbled. And continued to back away from the bed until her aching body hit the far wall of the messy hotel room with a loud thud._

_This couldn’t be happening._

_There was just no way._

_“I would never— Annie— My Annie—,” she muttered between her quickening, shallow breaths. “What the hell did you do to me?!”_

_“It takes two to tango, Kamilah,” Aiko spat, “and you weren’t exactly acting like you didn’t want me last night.”_

_“I have a girlfriend!,” she yelled. Without thinking twice, she grabbed the lamp that was sat on the table next to her and launched it at Aiko. The solid gold base smacked her right in the stomach and she doubled over on the mattress, wheezing and groaning like she’d been shot. “You know I have a girlfriend who I love very much—“_

_“Well you didn’t seem like you loved her all that much last night,” Aiko growled._

_“I love her with everything that I am!,” she snapped as she began gathering her clothes that were scattered around the room. “Don’t you dare imply otherwise—“_

_“Then why are you here, Kamilah? Why the hell didn’t you say no?” Aiko scoffed. “You never change. You did this to me and now you’ve done it to Anastasia— yet it’s still somehow someone else’s fault. Gaius isn’t here now. He’s not controlling you— this was all you.”_

_She didn’t answer._

_She didn’t remember anything._

_If she’d been in her right mind she would’ve stabbed this fool for daring to approach her in a bar— why didn’t she stab her?_

_“I understand that I hurt you when I left you at the end of the thirteenth century,” she growled as she pulled on her pants, “but how could you do this to me? After all this time— after how hard I have worked for happiness and how I’ve worked to be even half the woman that my Annie deserves— Are you really that petty and immature?”_

_Aiko swallowed thickly. “Don’t go blaming me for this. It’s not all my fault.”_

_She laughed humourlessly when she pulled her phone out of her pockets and saw a series of text messages from Anastasia. She’d gone to the penthouse to surprise her after she’d gotten off work and was worried about her. There was no less than twenty text messages and twenty-five missed calls._

_God._

_Oh god, she thought._

_“I just hope you’re happy and that finally getting your revenge is as satisfying as you’ve imagined that it would be,” she sighed, roughly wiping at her eyes. “You’ve ruined my life.”_

_“I didn’t fuck you to seek revenge. I didn’t fuck you out of loneliness or unhappiness. I didn’t fuck you for any of the misguided reasons that time might convince you I did. I just fucked you because you’re you,” Aiko whispered. “I’ve loved you for centuries. You know that I have.”_

_“I don’t give a damn about whatever it is that you think you feel for me.” She huffed and a few tears escaped her eyes. “I let Anastasia in... don’t you understand that? I let this woman in— I don’t do that! Now because of you I’m going to lose her.”_

_“Kamilah—“_

_“Don’t,” she snapped. “Just don’t bother.”_

_“It’s not like you have to tell her,” Aiko shrugged._

_She scoffed as she picked up her blouse but didn’t answer. Of course she had to tell her. She didn’t want to tell her... but she had to. Not only did Anastasia deserve honesty, these things had a habit of coming back to bite you in the ass if you kept them a secret._

_Aiko continued talking at her as she rushed to dress but she didn’t respond or take in a word she was saying. Was she bitter? Absolutely. Hurt? Of course she was hurt. Who didn’t feel a part of their heart break when they realised they hadn’t bettered themselves as much as they thought they had?_

_She asked herself every question she could think of, what, why, how come, and then her sadness turned to anger. Anger at Aiko. Anger at herself most of all. That was her least favourite part — the familiar sense of dread and self loathing that wrapped around her body like a blanket as she stormed towards the door._

_“Kamilah,” Aiko yelled, grabbing her wrist. “So that’s it? That’s—“_

_In the absence of even a hint of the self control or patience she’d been working to cultivate, Kamilah spun around and lunged at Aiko. She grabbed her by the throat, and knocked her down. With items of clothing and throw pillows littered on the floor suddenly thrust upward, the two were covered in a dark, hazy hell as they pursued a violent struggle for what seemed like an eternity. As she gained her footing, she shot back with a punch to Aiko’s head followed by several body punches. Her ex stumbled backward and fell giving her those precious, few seconds required for escape._

_“I’ll kill you next time,” she growled before slamming the door and storming off, leaving Aiko behind._

_Her entire body trembled as she began the short walk from the Lotte Palace Hotel to the Ahmanet skyscraper a few blocks away. Even the tourists seemed to know better than to get in her way as she thundered through the streets of Manhattan, her open Balmain blazer billowing ominously behind her._

_What irritated her most at herself in that entire situation was the fact that she wasn’t only feeling humiliated, or annoyed, or even fooled. Betrayal was what she felt, her heart broken not just by the way the woman she was in love with would react, but also by herself._

_This was all her fault._

_“Where the hell were you?!,” Anastasia shrieked as the elevator doors opened to the penthouse and Kamilah ran straight into her arms. “I was so worried— Kami? You’re shaking— What—“_

_“I’m sorry,” she sobbed into her shoulder as her arms tightened around her in a bone-crushing hug. “I’m so sorry— I don’t know what— I swear I—“_

_“Shhhh,” Anastasia soothed as she led her to the couch. “It’s alright. Whatever it is, it’s going to be alright—“_

_“Don’t say that,” she whimpered. “Please don’t say that— I’ve done something terrible, Annie.”_

_Anastasia leaned in and pressed a kiss to her brow as she gently wiped her tears away with her thumbs. “What did you do, sweetheart?,” she asked her gently. “Whatever it is, I’ll help you fix it. Just tell me and together we’ll make things okay again.”_

_Her bottom lip trembled and she looked down at the floor as she mumbled, “I slept with Aiko.”_

_The thumbs rubbing gentle lines across her cheek stilled and Anastasia’s hands fell to her lap. For a long moment she said nothing but the thundering of her breaking heart echoed in Kamilah’s ears— a sound that would haunt her for as long as she drew breath._

_“You— what?,” Anastasia asked, her voice cracking._

_“I’m so—“_

_“Why?!,” the younger vampire sobbed as she shot to her feet and put a few feet of distance between them. “Why would you— What?”_

_“I don’t know,” she whimpered as she looked up at her._

_Anything else she could’ve said died on her lips at the look on her face. At that same heartbroken look she’d seen only once before when Jax died in her arms. At that look she’d seen from numerous other people and had sworn blind she’d never earn from Anastasia._

_And in that moment she knew for certain that she’d lost her._

She pulled her work cellphone out of her pocket, knowing that her personal one was too broken to use without having to inspect it. 

She wasn’t quite sure what she was thinking as she went onto her email app and typed in Anastasia’s work email address. A better woman would’ve left the new Mrs. Kingsley alone. A better woman wouldn’t have bothered saying anything when she knew it was hopeless.

But she’d never been a very good woman.

For brief moment in her painfully long life she had held someone who had made each every day mean something. Who had made every moment exciting.

And now…. she was lost once again.

And nothing meant anything anymore.

The only place she had ever felt truly at home was with Anastasia— was laying in her embrace. There wasn’t a place for her anywhere anymore… she’d been evicted. Replaced by Ina Kingsley.

She missed that feeling of the connection between them. Knowing her beloved was out there somewhere thinking about her at the very same time she was thinking about her. 

The last time she felt alive she had been looking into the azure of her eyes. Breathing in her floral scent as she kissed her neck…. worshiping her velvety skin. 

Saying goodbye.

The truth was, the last time she had felt truly alive…. her heart had been breaking.

‘Your memory still feels like home to me. So whenever my mind wanders, it somehow always finds it’s way back to you. Your smile and your laughter lit my whole world — you were the sunshine of my life,’ she typed quickly. ‘The saddest part is, that I will end up loving you without having and holding you for much longer than I loved you when I had you. Some people might find that strange, myself amongst them. But the truth of it is that the amount of love you feel for someone and the impact they have on you as a person, is in no way relative to the amount of time you had them in your arms. Though I’m not sure exactly where or when these words will find you, I hope that you know I was thinking of you today and everyday….. and that I am wishing you every happiness, Annie. It’s difficult for me to imagine the rest of my life without you in it. But I suppose I don’t have to imagine it now... I just have to live it... to lay down in this bed of my own making. If you cannot hold me in your arms, then I beg that you try to hold my memory in high regard. And if I cannot be in your life, then at least let me live in your heart. Love always, your Kami.’


	3. lights will guide you home and ignite your bones.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by; Fix You by Sam Smith & Rewrite The Stars by The Piano Guys.

~~~~ 100+ years later - Geneva, Switzerland ~~~~

“I need to speak with Anastasia Swann immediately,” Kamilah demanded as she waltzed into the lobby of the main building on the leafy green campus of the new Raines Corp headquarters. 

It’d taken her a long while to get anyone to admit to her which of the new Raines Corp office campuses around the world that Anastasia was based at, with their mutual friends knowing that Anastasia wouldn’t want her to simply show up and not even the DailyMail able to find her on a daily basis the way they did when she was in New York. Serafine, Adrian, and even Lily had all tried to talk her out of her plan— but she’d simply told them if they wouldn’t tell her where she was then she would’ve gone to the offices Hong Kong, Silicon Valley, London, Singapore, Tokyo, Moscow, Paris, Buenos Aires, and Almaty in search of her.

They’d tried get her to do something positive to distract her from this crazy plan — they’d tried to get her to socialise more. But deep down they had all known the truth: an entire world full of people could never replace the one that she’d lost.

It sometimes seemed so peculiar and so wrong that she could have once been that intimate with Anastasia; to go to sleep in her arms and wake up with her, to do really quite extraordinarily personal things together on a regular basis, and then, suddenly, she did not even know her private cellphone number, or where she was living or working most of the time she spent away from Manhattan, or what she did on any given day or any given week or any give year.

The young mortal sat behind the front desk gaped at her, realising who she was right away. “I—,” he began before clearing his throat, “Do you have an appointment with Ms. Swann?”

“I do not require an appointment,” she deadpanned. “Where is she?”

The mortal’s face paled and he swallowed thickly as he slid a Raines Corp business card across the marble desk towards her. “I’m sorry, Miss Sayeed, but Ms. Swann does not see anyone without an appointment— vampire or otherwise. She is a busy woman with a schedule planned six months in advance. If you want to book an appointment you can contact her assistants and they will allocate you a slot in her timetable, should she decide she wants to see you—“

“Mortal, you are trying my patience.” Her eyes flared red and she leaned over the table, the tips of her fangs glistening as she cracked a threatening smile. “I will ask you only once more: where is my Annie?”

“I—“

“Kamilah,” a familiar voice that she hadn’t heard in person for ninety-one-years growled from behind her. “You have exactly five seconds to stop threatening my employee and to explain what the hell you think you’re doing here before I get pissed.”

Her breath hitched in her throat and she slowly turned around to see Anastasia standing before her... minus the wedding ring that had decorated her hand for seventy years before her very public — but remarkably amicable — divorce. At the grand age of one-hundred-and-twenty-five Anastasia had very clearly grown into herself, as she stood straight as a pole without a hint of bashfulness or the goofiness of youth that had once shone in her eyes. 

She really was the most beautiful person she had ever set eyes on. Despite the fact she hadn’t physically aged since twenty-two, she seemed older. More refined. Burdened with being so glamorous and sensual without even trying to be. Her timeless beauty and femininity weren’t things that were contrived, and that natural brilliance and glamour seemed to draw every set of eyes in the busy lobby.

“You wouldn’t answer my calls,” she mumbled. “I’ve been calling your office for a while.”

“I stopped answering your calls more than a century ago,” Anastasia deadpanned as she smoothed down the perfectly tailored white lab coat that she was wearing over a black dress before waving off the immortal security guards eyeing her suspiciously.

“I know,” she sighed. “I— Can I talk to you? It’s important. Please, Annie—“

“Don’t call me that,” Anastasia interjected sharply before mumbling a heartfelt apology on her behalf to the young man sitting behind the desk in fluent Swiss French. Just hearing her aversion to the nickname was like another dagger to the heart. “I have an important meeting in an hour and I’m flying to Singapore later today,” she said as she gestured for her to follow her. “You’ll have to make whatever this is quick. I really don’t have the time or any sort of desire to sit and catch up with you.”

There were many things she could have said in response to that, but like everyone else, she had forgotten to forge armour against the knife-thrusts of the woman she still loved more than anyone else in the world. So she simply nodded and replied, “I’ll do my best, Anastasia.”

Anastasia cast her a confused look and quickly tried to cover it with a smile to stop her employees whispering as they walked. It wasn’t until now that Kamilah realised that it was the intricate details about her that she truly missed the most after a breakup like this. For her, it was the soft dimples on her cheeks when she smiled… or that confused look she had given her sometimes that she could not begin to describe — but she knew it the moment she saw it again.

It was the look that gave her away.

She’d know that look anywhere. Everywhere.

It used to be her everything.

She swallowed thickly as they walked side-by-side up a wide glass spiral staircase wound around a glass encased beautifully landscape atrium, the silence between them an uncomfortable, tangible thing. Despite the reason that had sparked her sudden visit to Geneva, her demeanor wasn’t that of a woman enraged. To see her walking slumped, glassy-eyed, and nervously chewing on her bottom lip as employees and highly intelligent members of Clan Swann speaking multiple languages spoke to Anastasia as she was leading her... wherever the hell she was leading her... a person might say she looked much more like a woman subdued.

Not a word left her lips as she watched Anastasia simultaneously running Raines Corp and answering questions regarding her Clan’s politics with ease. She didn’t make the sarcastic remarks she once would’ve as younger vampires ran up to her and asked ridiculous questions, nor did she giggle with the youthful unease that came with being in charge, but she was uncommonly kind to everyone who spoke to her, still. 

It was a fascinating thing for her to see. How she’d grown. How she’d changed. For so long all she’d had was a beloved but incomplete form of her stuck in her head. A woman between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-three who’d still been finding herself. She’d continued to shape and shift into a new version of herself as she’d aged, yet the old version of her who’d captured her heart a century earlier still shone through.

Until all of this had happened she truly hadn’t known that a living person could hurt her so badly, even after all she’d been through. Anastasia wasn’t trying to be mean, she knew that. She was just as traumatised by all of this as she... and it made perfect sense that she would not be pleased to see her at all.

She almost preferred it when pain originated with someone who was now dead, that way it was just her own memory that hurt her. Walking through the house, touching things they’d touched, hearing the sounds they’d heard, wondering what they would’ve thought of one thing or another. This was a pain that she knew very well, pain that she knew that she could handle, a pain that was so much a part of her that if it were removed she would not feel anywhere close to her normal self.

But when it was someone who was alive and well who was hurting her, the pain could not be easily escaped. The things they’d touched were still warm because they were just there, the sounds they heard resonated in her ears too — sometimes their own voice, and it was excruciating to bear. She knew exactly what Anastasia thought about this, that, or the other thing because she could hear her saying so. But not to her. She didn’t talk to her the way she used to anymore... and she didn’t know if she ever would again.

It was just never going to get any easier, was it? It was never going away, this missing her. It had become a sadness she had incorporated into herself — along with all the other sadnesses — and quietly carried around with her.

“You can sit down if you want,” Anastasia said, breaking the silence between them as they walked into her massive office. It was an airy room that looked over the whole of the lush Raines Corp campus through an entire wall made of glass. It was complete with well tended plants, a stylish emerald green velvet couch, trendy armchairs, a mahogany desk that looked more expensive than most people’s houses, and shelves lined with scientific books written in multiple languages and different prestigious awards she’d achieved for both her humanitarian and scientific work.

She took a deep breath and lowered herself onto one end of the couch as Anastasia perched on the opposite end. “I— I know me showing up here probably seems rather... sudden.”

Anastasia huffed. “Especially because I distinctly remember telling you that I never wanted to see you again.”

She cleared her throat and nodded. “You did say that... many times.”

“I was telling the truth, you know,” Anastasia said. “Why are you here, Kamilah? What could you possibly have to say to me after all this time?”

“I snapped and killed Aiko thirty years ago when she wouldn’t leave me alone,” she muttered. “I’m sure you’ve heard about that—“

“As The Bloodkeeper, I make it my business to know when a prominent member of our society winds up getting themselves killed,” Anastasia interjected. “Why the hell do you think The Five didn’t take your life in retribution?”

She blinked. “You... stopped them executing me?”

Anastasia shrugged noncommittally and waved her hand to dismiss the question. “Just tell me what it is that you want, Kamilah. I’m in no mood—“

“I can’t remember if I actually slept with her or not,” she said so quickly that she hardly took a breath between her words. “You know I rarely ever black out when I drink and I remember nothing about that night. My theory is that she either slipped me something to get me into that state and—“

“Stop—“

“Serafine can’t even access my memories,” she continued as Anastasia got up from the couch and paced across the room to stand in front of the windows. “I’ve been so traumatised by the whole thing that the psychic block I’ve employed on my own mind is too strong for her to break through. We’ve been trying since your divorce was finalised and—“

“And you want me to look into your mind or access Aiko’s memories to find out what actually happened?,” Anastasia laughed humourlessly, her back turned. “As if you fucking her and breaking my heart wasn’t enough the first time, now you want me to see it happening?”

“Annie—“

“I’ve asked you repeatedly not to call me that.”

She sighed. “Sorry— force of habit.”

Anastasia was silent for a long time before she said, “And what if you did sleep with her? Will you finally give up on the ridiculous notion that I will ever be able to sweep this under the rug and pick up exactly where we left off? Not letting go doesn’t keep me with you. It’s still over. I’m still gone... and nothing short of finding out you didn’t do a damn thing with her will ever change that.”

“What if I didn’t?,” she countered as she got up and walked to her side. “Perhaps I was easier to shake off for you because you’re such a smart and together person. I was just an extra layer on the outside… like a warm blanket you could shrug off and feel just the same…. except maybe a little colder—“

“Is that what you really think?”

“I was always a broken person that was haphazardly held together by little more than my own strength and stubbornness. And so you just seeped in the cracks and mingled with my insides until you became an inseparable part of me. Here I am a century later still fighting for you—“

“I tried to kill myself three times after your night with Aiko,” Anastasia interjected. “I don’t tell you that to make you feel guilty— but don’t you dare stand there and act like this has been easy for me... because it hasn’t been. If it wasn’t for Lily and Ina supporting me, I wouldn’t be here today, so don’t you dare even think about standing there and giving me your expert opinion on things you don’t know shit about.”

She froze and immediately a wave of nausea washed over her. “You what?”

Anastasia shrugged but didn’t elaborate on exactly what she’d tried to do. “With you in my life I felt like I could conquer anything. It was as if I was on top of the world and even the stars themselves were just within my grasp. But without you… for a long time even getting through the day was hard.” She sighed. “I still think of you, even now. But I’m trying not to let it hurt me with the same intensity that it used to.”

She sighed and anxiously cracked her knuckles. “I’m so sorry. I— I really don’t think I even did anything with her. I truly don’t but I know it seems very much like I did but I— Theres no way. I would never— Will you please just look into my mind and give us both peace?”

“If you didn’t—“

“Will that get you to finally admit that you still love me and—“

“I’ve never once claimed not to love you,” Anastasia whispered, her eyes focused on something off in the distance. “When I left I told you that I still loved you... I just hated you for doing the one thing to me that I didn’t think you were capable of.“

“And now?,” she asked with bated breath.

“Now I’m no longer the same naive twenty-three-year-old girl that I was when I walked out of your apartment,” Anastasia replied without elaborating.

That could’ve meant a hundred things and she couldn’t even begin to unpack it, as she found herself running headfirst into unbreakable walls that had never been there with her in the past. Anastasia had always been so open and so honest with her... and now she could hardly stand to look her in the eye.

In a way, it was the same as any normal break up. Anastasia had taken what was hers and she kept what she’d had from before they were together. Yet Anastasia had taken her withered old heart…. and she had nothing without her. This woman was her sweetest fantasy and her bitterest reality.

“Do you honestly think I ever would’ve hurt you?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “That I have ever been capable of knowingly hurting you?”

“You did hurt me, Kamilah.” Anastasia ran a hand through her hair. “If you would’ve asked me that question before that night, I would’ve said no... but your actions changed my answer. You cheated on me... and it doesn’t matter how much you had to drink, you still cheated.”

“We don’t know that,” she sighed. “Annie— Anastasia, I don’t know what happened that night. No psychic I’ve gone to in the last century can figure out what happened that night. Aiko is dead, so it’s not like I can torture the information out of her. But I know in my heart that I never would’ve betrayed you, even if I was absolutely shit-faced... and I hope that deep down you know that too.”

Anastasia took a few steps away from her, putting more distance between them. This was such a hard thing for her to handle because pretty much all of her past lovers that Kamilah knew of besides Ina Kingsley had cheated on her, and the experience had traumatised her.

“Besides the fact that there is a chance that this whole century of us being apart has been unnecessary,” she said softly, “I don’t know if she did anything to me that night that I’m unaware of. I know you have no reason to want to help me after everything I have put you through... but—“

“I’ll do it. I can’t promise you anything regarding us, Kamilah, there are a thousand things that could’ve happened that night... but you deserve to know if she took advantage of you,” Anastasia whispered as she slowly turned around to face her. “What’s the last thing you remember from that night?”

“Texting you to tell you how much I love you.”

“Loved, you mean?,” Anastasia breathed.

“I said what I said.” She fiddled with the necklace hanging around her neck. She felt like she had poured her heart out... and now she just felt empty. “I was alone at that point and I hadn’t had that much to drink.”

“Then it’s probably best for me to look into Aiko’s memories to find out what happened. If she did give you something your memories will be harder to decipher,” Anastasia said as she walked back over to the couch and sat down. “Drugs and trauma can... muddle our ability to form coherent memories.”

Kamilah followed her and sat down, just a little closer to her than she had been before. Still not close enough to touch her... but closer. She stared into the delicately beautiful face, the eyes alight with a vast intelligence and that eerie, unearthly power. She was enchanting, so haunted with power it took her a second to realise exactly what position asking for this had put them both in.

It seemed a horrible thing to be hoping with her whole heart that she had been drugged to make her vulnerable to Aiko’s charms. Whilst she obviously hoped Aiko hadn’t physically touched her... just having been slipped something and finding out that she hadn’t willingly betrayed her greatest love— it was something she desperately needed to know.

The familiar staticky feel in the air prickled across her skin as Anastasia accessed her abilities. It’d been so long since she’d felt the sheer intensity of her powers that she’d almost forgotten how awe inspiring it was to see her using them up close.

She watched on with bated breath as Anastasia slipped into her trance. Her eyes softly closed and her breathing deep and even. It almost brought tears to her eyes to see her like this after all this time. Every book and every film seemed to suggest that ‘one day’ someone would come into her life and love her with an intensity and a passion she had never experienced before. And to their credit, they were right; but it had all came and went so fast it really did feel as if it were just ‘one day’.

“She flew to New York specifically to see you,” Anastasia said without opening her eyes. “The weirdo was sat in the café that used to be across the street from Ahmanet watching both of our comings and going’s from your apartment for a week before she contacted you.”

“I had no idea,” she cringed. “I should’ve known.”

“She saw you— she saw you shopping for,” she cleared her throat, “a ring. She saw you shopping for a ring— you were shopping for a ring?”

“They are necessary for any decent proposal,” she said quietly. “I was planning on asking you to move in with me and proposing over the first breakfast we shared together in our home.”

Anastasia simply nodded and wrung her hands, her brow pinched. What she’d said seemed to throw her concentration, as the amount of static in the air wavered before picking back up again. “Um,” she continued, “you ordered a whiskey and— Jesus christ—“

“What?”

“She put hemlock in your drink— In the actual bottle at the bar, not your glass,” Anastasia said angrily. “You didn’t see because... you were texting me. Kami— Kamilah, um, she... she waited until you’d had a few refills and were getting drowsy before swooping in and taking you back to her hotel.”

Her fists balled up on her lap in her anger and a low growl left her throat. “Did she rape me? I woke up naked the next morning—“

“No,” Anastasia whimpered as tears poured down her face. “I’m so sorry I— God— Kami—“

“What happened?,” she prodded as she rested her head in her hands.

“She stripped you and scattered your clothes to make it look like— she has you laying on the bed because you can’t even hold your own head up and you’re asking where I am and you don’t know what’s happening,” Anastasia cried. “You keep yelling my name and trying to push her off but you can’t— I should’ve been there—“

“No,” she said as she scooted along the couch and pulled Anastasia into her arms without reservation, drawing her out of her trance. “This is in no way your doing—“

“I shouldn’t have just assumed the worst,” The Bloodkeeper sobbed as she wrapped her arms around her. “Kami, I’m so sorry this happened to you. I’m so sorry I didn’t look into your mind the moment you told me what you thought had happened— I should’ve supported you and instead I left—“

“We both thought I’d betrayed you,” she whispered as her tears fell onto her shoulder and her arms tightened around her. “But I know I never would— that was why it was so confusing and led me to believe things weren’t as they seemed, because even though we haven’t been together for the past century I’ve never been able to be with anyone else... drunk or sober. I’ve tried but I’ve never had it in me... even when you married Ina, I just couldn’t really look at anyone else. My heart’s been empty since you left but still I refused to put up a vacancy sign. I’ll never ready for anybody else to move in.”

Anastasia started crying harder and didn’t protest as Kamilah drew her onto her lap. “You were right when you said that I still love you,” The Bloodkeeper whimpered. “That’s why Ina and I broke up. She was my first love and I did love her but she knew that she’d never be able to compete with you. I wish I could undo it all… take it all back. All those years I spent unfulfilled with her when I should have been with you— even when I thought that you had— and I lied and said I never wanted to see you again— I never really stopped loving you.”

A loud sob wracked through Kamilah’s body as she nuzzled her face into the warmth of Anastasia’s neck and ran her hand through the length of her hair. “I know you live here now and you have a whole life that I’m not apart of,” she sniffled, “but I— I want to come home, Annie. I love you. I’ve never stopped and I never will stop. You make the idea of forever a journey into adventure rather than a thing to be endured. Please let me come home and I’ll never do anything that’ll make you send me away.”

Anastasia gently tilted her chin up and looked at her like she was the stars when all she’d ever felt like for the past century was the dark nothingness between them. She leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on her lips and then pulled back to rest her brow against hers. “I don’t think you ever really understood… all the love I had in the world went to you,” she whispered. “You can come home— just promise me one thing?”

“Name it.”

“Never let me do something as stupid as walking away from you again.”

She sniffled. “Promise me one thing in return?”

“Anything.”

“If any more of my psychotic exes come back into our lives, don’t judge me when I kill them on sight.” She huffed. “One killed you. One led us both to believe I’d done the worst thing imaginable for an entire century. I’m starting to think there’s a pattern here.”

At that, Anastasia giggled and looped her arms around her neck. She buried her face in her neck and held her in her arms, absorbing the form the shape of her, the miracle of her. It had been so long since they had held each other, loved each other, taken all that each other was and given everything each of them was. 

“I missed you,” Kamilah whispered. It was a ridiculous declaration. ‘Missed her’ didn't begin to cover at all how she had felt. How she had suffered.

“I missed you, too, Kami.”

She sighed happily and squeezed her tightly in her embrace. Suddenly she wasn’t this broken person anymore. She was just Kamilah. She was whole again. She was just a person — like everyone else. When she spoke again, her voice was muffled into Anastasia’s shoulder, “Does this mean that I can call you my Annie again?”

Anastasia let out a watery laugh and nodded. “I’ve always been your Annie... even when I wasn’t, I was... and I always will be.”

~ fin.


End file.
